Abstract

Author(s):

Kate Jackson

Affiliations:

Mental Health Branch, NSW Ministry of Health

The Australian population is ageing, and the number of older people with mental illness is projected to increase significantly. Some people develop a mental illness as they age, while others grow older with a continuing experience of mental illness that developed earlier in their lives. For older people, mental illness often co-occurs with other physical health conditions. There is significant evidence that older people with mental illness experience disadvantage in accessing appropriate physical health assessment and care, and poorer physical health and earlier mortality than the general population. This is particularly so for people who grow older with a continuing experience of severe and persistent mental illness, compared with older people who have developed mental illness in later life and generally have a history of better health care management. In general, the Australian population is ‘ageing well’ and the ‘younger old’ (65-75 years) experience better physical health. However, the growing ‘older old’ population are likely to present with more complex co-existing conditions.

This paper will explore mental health and physical health in the context of an ageing population. It will examine what we know about the physical health needs of older people with mental illness (including different sub-groups of older people) and how we are going in meeting those needs, particularly in mental health services and mental health service partnerships. It will highlight some of the challenges and lessons for improving care, drawing on the NSW experience in older people’s mental health (OPMH) services. It will provide the context for Rod McKay’s paper reflecting on the journey in NSW in this area, and our current work to improve physical health assessment and care for older people with mental illness, focussing on consumers of NSW OPMH services.